June 2007
Under Gordon Brown’s chancellorship, the Treasury has shown a support for books and reading that is perhaps unprecedented in a department not directly responsible for education.
The July 2004 spending review signalled that Brown was beginning to build his literacy credentials, announcing funding to extend the Bookstart scheme, previously funded by Sainsbury’s and various grants. The scheme enables universal provision of free books to every child on three occasions in their early years – potentially making a huge difference to children who would otherwise have no books of their own.
Speaking at a nursery school in 2005, Brown showed that he recognised the importance of learning in the early years for children’s literacy development, and the wider effects on their life chances:
"In-depth research here in the UK shows that if a child has two years of high quality early education, it can give a six-month boost to performance at seven. And if the same child has three years of early years education from the age of two, she has a 10 to 12-month boost at the age of seven. Not one of the children in the study who had nursery education failed to reach their literacy and numeracy standards at the age of seven. And because those who do well at seven are twice as likely to have a degree by 25, we are showing that we can break the cycle of underachievement." [1]
Following this, the 2006 Pre-Budget Report places a high priority on literacy. This report is significant not only for its announcement of the spending allocation for 2007-08, but also because it indicates the thinking that is determining the medium-term spending allocation of the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review and the priorities Brown will wish to address as Prime Minister.
The report contains three announcements: the roll-out of the Every Child a Reader programme, extending help for struggling readers to 30,000 children by 2011; introducing in 2007 a £4m national book gifting scheme for children aged five and 11, building on the early years Bookstart scheme; and measures to improve boys' literacy, making £10m available to the 400 secondary schools where the gap between boys' and girls' achievement is widest.
The 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review is set to continue the literacy drive. A policy review feeding into it highlights the need to build resilience in children in order to improve their outcomes – involving attainment in education, good social and emotional skills and positive parenting. [2]
Literacy is mentioned specifically in connection with the need to narrow the attainment gaps between boys and girls, and between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and others. The report also recognises that children's early language development predicts their later social and emotional skills, and that parental involvement has a significant impact on children's development of literacy and numeracy skills: how parents engage in their children's learning has a much greater impact on children’s attainment than schools.
The drive from the Treasury to understand and close gaps in attainment can be seen to be exerting an influence on the Department for Education and Skills, which recently announced 'Boys Into Books', a scheme to promote reading for enjoyment as a means of closing the gap in attainment between boys and girls.
However, the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children is yet bigger. With Brown said to have been deeply involved in the Treasury-driven targets culture that has reshaped schools, it is likely that his premiership will see an increase in targets aimed at measuring education improvement among children from poorer backgrounds.
This emphasis on improving literacy in order to improve outcomes is rooted in the drive both to tackle child poverty and to make the UK an effective player in an inclusive globalisation. Literacy is therefore not just an issue for schools, but one that begins at home and involves the workplace too.
Brown used his 2007 Mansion House speech to set out the desire that Britain use the talents of every individual by becoming world class in education, describing this as "our first priority". He went on, "our future education policy must and will champion aspiration and excellence with a renewed focus on standards and rigour in teaching methods, particularly in literacy and by reviewing fundamentally the teaching of numeracy."
This will feed into an increase in the skills of the workforce: the Mansion House speech went on to highlight the need to create up to five million new skilled jobs and to persuade five million unskilled men and women to gain the skills to fill them.
The 2006 Pre-Budget Report also takes up many of the recommendations made by the 2006 Leitch Review of Skills, including the proposals that by 2020, 90% of adults should reach at least the equivalent of five GCSEs, and that the number of adults learning basic workplace skills should increase from 100,000 in 2005 to 350,000 a year by 2011. It has been observed that job-related skills training is probably closer to the heart of Brown’s agenda than school reforms, with the need to improve the quality of the UK workforce driving his stewardship of the Treasury.
However, Brown also has a clear personal interest in the benefits that literacy and reading can bring. He asked Booktrust to host his most recent children's Christmas party on the theme of Reading for Pleasure, and to design that year's official Treasury Christmas card.
With a genuine love of literature himself, he has said, "for my whole life, the idea of reading books and getting the chance to read books and the time to read books is something which is empowering and really exciting", and again, "I think reading, in the literal sense, broadens the mind … It opens up to you ideas and themes and vistas that you otherwise would never really grasp."
He must surely recognise that this love is something that has its foundations in childhood, remarking that he "was brought up in a house where books were not just in one room but in every room", and having described the Harry Potter books as Britain's "greatest export". His wife Sarah's charitable work supports the theme: she is a patron of the educational charity SHINE, which supports innovative projects to help children who need to catch up with their education, and has co-edited a fundraising anthology of stories.
Given this strong personal interest, and Brown's determination to tackle child poverty and improve the skills of the workforce, it can be hoped that his premiership will mean a new strategic direction for literacy work. Universal book gifting activities need particular support if children are to make best use of the books they are given, and some of the initiatives announced by the Treasury have lacked the strategic depth that they could have had if they had been more closely tied in with initiatives to develop a reading culture in the schools, homes and communities where children and their families could most benefit. These targeted approaches are vital if every child is to benefit from universal offers.
The National Literacy Trust believes that literacy programmes need to be embedded and integrated in wider literacy and reading promotion activity. This needs to happen at three levels – in classroom practice, in school culture, and in home and community activity.
If literacy is really to change lives, support for it must involve a much wider range of agencies than is the case at present. Brown has announced that one of his first priorities will be the health service; as the most universal of all public services, it is vital that the practitioners such as health visitors who have contact with children at the very beginning of their lives are able to help parents put in place the foundations of language and literacy that will enable all children to fulfil their potential.
With Gordon Brown’s commitment to literacy and reading evident, we can hope that he will now put in place the measures that will help make every home a reading home, and every child a reader.
Read more NLT opinions and policy statements
[1] The research referred to probably comes from the Effective Provision of Pre-School
Education (EPPE) Project. For more information read a summary of the EPPE final report or visit www.ioe.ac.uk/schools/ecpe/eppe/eppe/eppefindings.htm
[2] Aiming high for children: supporting families, HM Treasury / Department for Education and Skills, March 2007. For more information visit www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/spending_review
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